| Rhin-et-Moselle | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Department ofFrench First Republic andFirst French Empire | |||||||||||||
| 1797–1814 | |||||||||||||
.svg) Location of Rhin-et-Moselle in France (1812) | |||||||||||||
| Capital | Koblenz | ||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
• 1812[1] | 5,884.19 km2 (2,271.90 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• 1812[1] | 269,700 | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
• Established | 1797 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1814 | ||||||||||||
| Political subdivisions | 3arrondissements: Koblenz Bonn Simmern | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||||||
Rhin-et-Moselle (French:[ʁɛ̃emɔzɛl];German:Rhein-und-Mosel) was adepartment of theFirst French Republic andFirst French Empire in present-dayGermany. It was named after the riversRhine andMoselle. It was formed in 1797, when theleft bank of the Rhine was annexed by France. Until the French occupation, its territory was divided between theArchbishopric of Cologne, theArchbishopric of Trier, and theElectorate of the Palatinate. Its territory is now part of theGerman states ofRhineland-Palatinate andNorth Rhine-Westphalia. Its capital wasKoblenz.
AfterNapoleon was defeated in 1814, the department became part ofPrussia.
The Département de Rhin-et-Moselle was established by theFrench First Republic in 1798 in the territories of theHoly Roman Empire conquered after theWar of the First Coalition in 1794, after the failure of the creation of an independentCisrhenian Republic. The annexation was legalized under international law by theTreaty of Lunéville on February 9, 1801. Since the French had to evacuate the right bank territories according to the peace treaty, they blew up before the old fortress ofEhrenbreitstein.
Following the inauguration of the administrative division, the cities and municipalities of the département received civil administration for the first time. From 1802 all the religious foundations and monasteries in the department were secularized. In the Concordat of 1801 the state guaranteed religious tolerance to the churches. With the dissolution of the ecclesiastical rule and the change of ownership, a new social order emerged. With the adoption of the Code civil from 1804, a modern legal system was introduced, based on individual liberties, equality before the law, the rule of law, the protection of property, and the strict separation of church and state. In the areas of the left bank of the Rhine, it continued even after the French period until the introduction of theBürgerliches Gesetzbuch in 1900. The new legal system replaced the previous secret inquisition processes and replaced them with public prosecution and jury trials. Furthermore, the male population of the conquered territories was subject to draft into the French army and thus had to participate in the French wars of conquest, including theFrench invasion of Russia, where many of the soldiers were killed. The French legacy of administration and justice, which was maintained during the Prussian period, allowed much greater scope for liberal aspirations. TheHambach Festival of 1832 and theGerman revolutions of 1848–49 would have been unimaginable without this legacy.
The Département de Rhin-et-Moselle existed until 1814. On New Year's Eve in 1814, Russian troops together withBlücher's Silesian army crossed the Rhine near Koblenz, Kaub and Mannheim. The French evacuated the département and left it to the Russians and Prussians without a fight. Thereafter, it was administered for a short time as part of theGeneral Government of the Middle Rhine and was finally assigned to theKingdom of Prussia in 1815 at theCongress of Vienna. Prussia formed the short-lived province of the Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine, the southern forerunner of theRhine Province, from the areas that it had acquired.
The prefects of the department were:
The department was subdivided into the followingarrondissements andcantons (situation in 1812):[1]
Its population in 1812 was 269,700, and its area was 588,419 hectares.[1]
 Annexeddepartments of theFrench First Republic (1792–1804) and of theFrench First Empire (1804–1814) | |
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| Ionian Islands | |
| Austrian Netherlands | |
| Old Swiss Confederacy | |
| Kingdom of Holland | |
| Holy Roman Empire | |
| Italian states | |
| Kingdom of Spain | |
| Austrian Empire |
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50°21′00″N7°35′00″E / 50.35°N 7.58333°E /50.35; 7.58333
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| National | |
