Republic of Mainz explained

Native Name:
    Conventional Long Name:Republic of Mainz / Rhenish-German Free State
    Common Name:Mainz
    Status:Client
    Empire:France
    Status Text:Client state of France
    Era:French Revolutionary Wars
    Government Type:Revolutionary republic
    Life Span:March – July 1793
    Year Start:1793
    Year End:1793
    Event Pre:Occupied by Custine
    Date Pre:21 October 1792
    Event Start:Independence proclaimed
    Date Start:18 March
    Event1:Delegates sent to Paris
    Date Event1:23 March 1793
    Event2:National Convention approved accession to French Republic
    Date Event2:30 March 1793
    Event End:Reconquered by Austro-Prussian forces
    Date End:22 July
    P1:Electorate of Mainz
    S1:Electorate of Mainz
    Capital:Mainz
    Today:Germany

    The Republic of Mainz was the first democratic state in the current German territory[1] and was centered in Mainz. A product of the French Revolutionary Wars, it lasted from March to July 1793.

    Context

    During the War of the First Coalition against France, the Prussian and Austrian troops that had invaded France retreated after the Battle of Valmy, allowing the French revolutionary army to counterattack. The troops of General Custine entered the Palatinate in late September and occupied Mainz on 21 October 1792. The ruler of Mainz, Elector-Archbishop Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, had fled the city.

    Jacobin club

    On the next day, 20 citizens of Mainz founded a Jacobin club, the German: Gesellschaft der Freunde der Freiheit und Gleichheit (English: Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality). Together with their filial clubs founded later in Speyer and Worms, they promoted the Enlightenment and the French revolutionary ideals of French: liberté, égalité, fraternité in Germany, aiming for a German republic to be established following the French model. Most of the founding members of the Jacobin club were professors and students of the University of Mainz, together with the university librarian, Georg Forster, some merchants and Mainz state officials. For some time the ecclesiastic was president of the club and editor of the German: Mainzer Nationalzeitung (English: Mainz National Newspaper).

    Founding

    By order of the French National Convention, elections in the French-occupied territories west of the Rhine were held on 24 February 1793.[2] 130 cities and towns sent their deputies to Mainz.[2] The first[2] democratically elected parliament on the territory of future Germany, called the German: Rheinisch-Deutscher Nationalkonvent (English: Rhenish-German National Convention), met initially on 17 March 1793, in the Deutschhaus building in Mainz (today the seat of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament). The convention declared the represented territory (which extended to Bingen in the west and to Landau in the south) to be free and democratic, and disclaimed any ties to the empire. The convention's president, Andreas Joseph Hofmann, proclaimed the Rhenish-German Free State (German: Rheinisch-Deutscher Freistaat) from the balcony of the Deutschhaus. On 21 March 1793, it was decided to seek the accession of the Free State to France[3] and delegates (among them Georg Forster and Adam Lux) were sent to Paris. The French National Convention granted the request on 30 March.

    End

    Soon after, Prussian troops retook all the French-occupied territory except for the heavily fortified city of Mainz itself. After a long siege in which much of the city was destroyed, Prussian and Austrian troops conquered the city on 22 July 1793. The republic ended, and the Jacobins were persecuted until 1795 when Mainz came under French control again.

    Further reading

    Notes and References

    1. The short-lived republic is often ignored in identifying the "first German democracy", in favour of the Weimar Republic; e.g. "the failure of the first German democracy after the First World War (the Weimar Republic)..." (Peter J. Burnell, Democracy Assistance: international co-operation for democratization 2000:131), or Ch. 3. 'The First Attempt at Democracy, 1918–1933', in Michael Balfour, West Germany: a contemporary history, 1982:60
    2. Web site: Der 18. März 1793. Der Rheinisch-deutsche Nationalkonvent in Mainz . 18 March 1793: The Rhenish-German National Convention in Mainz . German: Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz (Central archive of Rhineland-Palatinate) . 18 March 2003 . 2012-04-06 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140106040444/http://www.landeshauptarchiv.de/index.php?id=408 . 6 January 2014 .
    3. Encyclopedia: Andreas Joseph Hofmann, Präsident des Rheinisch-Deutschen Nationalkonvents . Die Mainzer Republik : der Rheinisch-Deutsche Nationalkonvent . V. Hase & Koehler . Mainz . Scheel . Heinrich . 1993 . 32666345 . Landtag Rheinland-Pfalz . Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate . de.