page_title: History of Bavaria
section_title: Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods
hierarchical_section_title: History of Bavaria / Electorate of Bavaria / Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods
context_page_description: The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empire to its status as an independent kingdom and finally as a large Bundesland of the Federal Republic of Germany. Originally settled by Celtic peoples such as the Boii, by the 1st century BC it was eventually conquered and incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Raetia and Noricum.
context_section_description: In 1792, French revolutionary armies overran the Palatinate; in 1795 the French, under Moreau, invaded Bavaria itself and advanced to Munich where they were received with joy by the long-suppressed Liberals, and laid siege to Ingolstadt. Charles Theodore, who had done nothing to prevent wars or to resist the invasion, fled to Saxony and abandoned a regency whose members signed a convention with Moreau, by which he granted an armistice in return for a heavy contribution (7 September 1796).
  Between the French and the Austrians, Bavaria was now in a bad situation. Even before the death of Charles Theodore on 16 February 1799, the Austrians had again occupied the country, in preparation for renewing the war with France. Maximilian IV Joseph (of Zweibrücken) the new elector succeeded to a difficult inheritance. Though both he and his all-powerful minister, Maximilian von Montgelas sympathized more with France than Austria, the state of the Bavarian finances, and the fact that the Bavarian troops were scattered and disorganized placed him helpless in the hands of Austria. On 2 December 1800, the Bavarian armies were involved in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden, and Moreau once more occupied Munich. By the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801) Bavaria lost the Palatinate and the duchies of Zweibrücken and Jülich.
  In view of the scarcely disguised ambitions and intrigues of the Austrian court, Montgelas now believed that the interests of Bavaria lay in a frank alliance with the French Republic; he succeeded in overcoming the reluctance of Maximilian Joseph and on 24 August a separate treaty of peace and alliance with France was signed in Paris. By the third article of this the First Consul undertook to see that the compensation promised under the 7th article of the treaty of Lunéville for the territory ceded on the left bank of the Rhine, should be carried out at the expense of the Empire in the manner most agreeable to Bavaria (see de Martens, Recueil, vol. vii. p. 365).
  Thus in 1803, in accordance to this agreement, in the territorial rearrangements consequent on Napoleon's suppression of the ecclesiastical states and of many free cities of the Empire, Bavaria received the bishoprics of Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg and Freisingen, part of that of Passau, the territories of twelve abbeys, and seventeen cities and villages. The whole form a compact territory which more than compensated for the loss of her outlying provinces on the Rhine. Montgelas now aspired to raise Bavaria to the rank of a first-rate power and he pursued this object during the Napoleonic epoch with consummate skill, allowing fully for the preponderance of France — so long as it lasted — but never permitting Bavaria to sink, like so many of the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, into mere French dependency. In the war of 1805, in accordance with a treaty of alliance signed at Würzburg on 23 September, Bavarian troops, for the first time since the days of Charles VII, fought side by side with the French, and by the Treaty of Pressburg, signed on 26 December, the Principality of Eichstädt, the Margraviate of Burgau, the Lordship of Vorarlberg, the counties of Hohenems and Königsegg-Rothenfels, the lordships of Argen and Tettnang, and the city of Lindau with its territory was to be added to Bavaria. On the other hand, Würzburg, obtained in 1803, was to be ceded by Bavaria to the elector of Salzburg in exchange for Tirol. By the 1st article of the treaty, the emperor acknowledged the assumption by the elector of the title of king, as Maximilian I. The price which Maximilian had reluctantly to pay for this accession of dignity was the marriage of his daughter Augusta with Eugène de Beauharnais. On 15 March 1806 he ceded the Duchy of Berg to Napoleon.
  For the internal constitution of Bavaria also the French alliance had noteworthy consequences. Maximilian himself was an "enlightened" prince of the 18th-century type, whose tolerant principles had already grievously offended his clerical subjects. Montgelas was a firm believer in drastic reform "from above", a
caption: Gallia protects Bavaria, 1809 painting by Marianne Kürzinger
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