Review: Ongewilde revolutie. Limburgs Maasland onder Frankrijk

Ongewilde revolutie. Limburgs Maasland onder Frankrijk by Ubachs, P.J.H.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A case study of the Nedermaas department under French administration. With the French conquest of the Southern Netherlands in 1794 the whole area was placed under French administration, but it would take a decade before it was fully integrated in the French empire. The area had been a patchwork of states so that the new department included parts of the Dutch Republic, the Austrian Netherlands, the Duchy of Gulik, the Prince Bishopric of Liège and some others.

Very interesting to read this just after Woolf's Napoleon's Integration of Europe, which touches on many similar subjects: the long and winding road of incorporating territories outside France into France (or the Empire), administrative reform and creation of a modern bureaucracy, conscription, the struggle with the catholic church, regional cultures and attempts to integrate elites by setting up societies and through masonic lodges. And of course forms of resistance or at least maintaining distance from the regime.



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