Grand Duchy of Hesse


The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse. It assumed the name Hesse and by Rhine in 1816 to distinguish itself from the Electorate of Hesse, which had formed from the neighbouring Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Colloquially, the grand duchy continued to be known by its former name of Hesse-Darmstadt.
In 1806, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt seceded from the Holy Roman Empire and joined Napoleon's new Confederation of the Rhine. The country was promoted to the status of grand duchy and received considerable new territories, principally the Duchy of Westphalia. After the French defeat in 1815, the grand duchy joined the new German Confederation. Westphalia was taken by Prussia, but Hesse received Rhenish Hesse in return. A constitution was proclaimed in 1820 and a long process of legal reforms was begun, with the aim of unifying the disparate territories under the grand duke's control. The political history of the grand duchy during this period was characterised by conflict between the conservative mediatised houses and forces supporting political and social liberalisation. During the 1848 revolutions, the government was forced to grant wide-ranging reforms, including the full abolition of serfdom and universal manhood suffrage, but the reactionary government of Reinhard von Dalwigick rolled most of these back over the following decade. In 1866, Hesse entered the Austro-Prussian War on the Austrian side, but received a relatively mild settlement from the Prussian victors. The grand duchy joined the German Empire in 1871. As a small state within the empire, the grand duchy had limits placed on its autonomy, but significant religious, social, and cultural reforms were carried out. During the November Revolution after World War I in 1918, the grand duchy was overthrown and replaced by the People's State of Hesse.

Geography

The portion of the grand duchy on the right bank of the Rhine stretched most of the way from the south of the modern state of Hesse to Frankenberg. The portion on the left bank was located in the modern state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to the great floodplains of the Rhine, Main, and Wetterau, the grand duchy also contained upland regions like the Vogelsberg, the Hessian Hinterland, and the Odenwald. In the south, the exclaves of the extended into the Grand Duchy of Baden.

Physical geography and population

The territory consisted of two separate areas: the of Upper Hesse in the north and the provinces of Starkenburg and Rhenish Hesse in the south, as well as a number of much smaller exclaves. The northern and southern sections were separated by a narrow stretch of territory, which belonged to Prussia after 1866 and before that to Duchy of Nassau, the Free City of Frankfurt, and the Electorate of Hesse. About 25% of the land area was forested. The two sections had very different characters:
;Upper Hesse
Upper Hesse was the largest of the three provinces by area. Most of this territory was forested uplands of the Vogelsberg and the Hessian Hinterland. Only a small portion was part of the fertile Wetterau, where there were also brown coal deposits. There were many streams and waterways in the area, but none of them were big enough to serve as transport routes. Agriculture brought only low yields, while there was no industry at all. This led to increasing poverty over the course of the 19th century and massive emigration to the established industrial centres in Germany and overseas. While Upper Hesse was also the largest province by population at the start of the 19th century, by the end of the grand duchy in 1918 it had become the smallest. The only significant institution which was based here was the University of Giessen.
;Starkenburg and Rhenish Hesse
Starkenburg and Rhenish Hesse were totally different. They lay almost entirely on the banks of the Rhine. Intensive agriculture was possible and profitable in many areas of these plains, such as fruit growing on the Bergstraße and viticulture in Rhine-Hesse. There were two large navigable rivers, the Rhine and the Main, which were the most important transportation routes until the development of the railway. Burgeoning industry developed in this region. The three major centres of the grand duchy were located here: the capital at Darmstadt, the largest industrial centre at Offenbach am Main, and Mainz which was the largest city and the most significant centre for trade.

Political geography

The grand duchy was divided into three provinces:
  • Starkenburg : Right bank of the Rhine, south of the Main.
  • Rhenish Hesse : Left bank of the Rhine, territory gained from the Congress of Vienna.
  • Upper Hesse : North of the Main, separated from Starkenburg by the Free City of Frankfurt.
The neighbouring states were:
There were also a number of Hessian exclaves to the north and south:
  • The exclave of was sandwiched between the Electorate of Hesse and the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont, while Eimelrod und Höringhausen were inside Waldeck;
  • The exclave of Wimpfen was sandwiched between Baden and the Kingdom of Württemberg;
  • Another exclave, made up of half the town of Helmhof, was located inside Baden;
, which belonged to the Electorate of Hesse, was an enclave within the grand duchy until 1866, when it was given to the grand duchy.
Hesse-Homburg was inherited by the Grand Duke of Hesse in 1866, but had to be ceded to Prussia later that same year. The Biedenkopf district and the Hessian Hinterland were also annexed by Prussia in 1866. These territories were combined with Electoral Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau, and Frankfurt to create the new Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau in 1868.

History

1806 establishment

During the Napoleonic Wars, Louis X, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, initially sought Prussian protection against Napoleonic France, but after the Battle of Austerlitz, this policy became untenable. At the last minute, Louis X switched sides and supplied troops to Napoleon. Along with fifteen other states, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt left the Holy Roman Empire and joined the Confederation of the Rhine. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was promoted to a grand duchy and Louis X thereafter styled himself Grand Duke Louis I and announced not only the promotion, but also the territories he had received under the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine in an edict on 13 August 1806. Along with the promotion to the rank of grand duchy, Hesse was also rewarded with territorial gains, such as the Electorate of Cologne. However, although all this territory lay under his sovereignty, the princes who had previously held these territories, the mediatised houses, retained a significant portion of their former powers.
Before this territorial expansion, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt had around 210,000 inhabitants in its territories on the right bank of the Rhine. After 1806, the population was around 546,000. At the same time, the Grand Duchy reached its greatest territorial extent, around 9,300 km2. Almost simultaneously, there was a radical change in the state's internal politics. With two edicts on 1 October 1806, the Grand Duke revoked the financial privileges of the landed nobility on a large scale and their Landstände were abolished, which transformed Hesse-Darmstadt "from a mosaic of patrimonial fragments into a centralized, absolute monarchy".

Developments after 1806

On 24 April 1809, Napoleon ordered the abolition of the Teutonic Order, amalgamating Kloppenheim and into the grand duchy.
Between 1808 and 1810, there were plans to introduce the Napoleonic Code as only valid law for the whole grand duchy. However, these discussions were terminated by the conservative government of, which was opposed to social changes.
On 11 May 1810, the grand duchy and the French Empire concluded a treaty, which granted the grand duchy further areas under French control, which had been taken from Electoral Hesse in 1806. Although the treaty was agreed in May, it was only signed by Napoleon on 17 October 1810. The Hessian certificate of possession is dated 10 November 1810. The Babenhausen district was attached to Strakenburg province, the other territories to Upper Hesse.
In August 1810, there was a three-way agreement between France, Hesse, and the Grand Duchy of Baden. Baden placed its territories at French disposal and France gave them back to the grand duchy with a treaty signed on 11 November 1810. The Hessian certificate of possession is dated 13 November 1810.

The Congress of Vienna (1815)

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the grand duchy joined the German Confederation and received a portion of the former Mont-Tonnerre department, which had a population of 140,000 people and included the important federal Fortress of Mainz, as compensation for the Duchy of Westphalia, which Hesse had received in 1803 and which was now transferred to Prussia. During the turbulence of Hundred Days, when Napoleon returned from exile, Austria, Prussia, and the Grand Duchy of Hesse concluded a treaty on 30 June 1816, which regulated the region and went into more detail that the treaty signed at Vienna in the previous year. There were further border agreements and exchanges of small areas of territory with the Electorate of Hesse and the Kingdom of Bavaria. The patents of possession are dated 8 July 1816, but were only published on 11 July. After this consolidation, the grand duchy had a population of roughly 630,000.
The neighbouring Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, which Napoleon had annexed into the Kingdom of Westphalia, was re-established by the Congress of Vienna as the Electorate of Hesse. After Louis I's counterpart in Hesse-Kessel, William I, Elector of Hesse, began styling himself "Elector of Hesse and Grand Duke of Fulda", Louis sought the additional title "Elector of Mainz and Duke of Worms" in order to match William I. However, Austria and Prussia refused to grant this. Instead, William gestured to this claimed title by changing the name of the grand duchy to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine, which also helped to distinguish the two Hessian states.