Peace of Basel: Difference between revisions

The agreement of 5 April 1795 between France and Prussia had been under discussion since 1794. Prussia withdrew from the coalition that was working on the impending partition of Poland, and where appropriate, withdrew its troops that were aligned against Austria and Russia. (see also the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] and the [[Napoleonic Wars]]) In secret Prussia recognized French control of the west bank of the [[Rhine]], pending a cession by the [[Imperial Diet (Holy Roman Empire)|Imperial Diet]], while France returned all of the lands east of the Rhine captured during the war. On the night of the 6th6 April the document was signed by the representatives of France and Prussia, François de Barthélemy and Karl August von Hardenberg. They were not face to face, each was in his own accommodation in Rosshof or the Markgräflerhof, and the papers were passed around by a courier. The contract that ceded the left bank of the Rhine was in a secret article, along with the promise that it would indemnify the right bank, if the left bank of the Rhine should be covered in a final general peace in France. Peter Ochs drew up the Treaty and served as a mediator for a significant proportion of these financial statements.