L’intervention militaire prussienne dans la principauté de Liège (1790) : Entre exécution des sentences impériales et médiation bienveillante

The Liège Revolution began on 18 August 1789. The result of ever-stronger opposition between the institutions and interference by the European powers in Liège's internal affairs, the revolutionary movement did not officially end until 9 Vendémiaire An V (18 October 1795), when France voted to reunite the Netherlands and the Principality with the Republic. The revolutionary movement of 18 August was swiftly condemned by the Imperial Chamber of Wetzlar, the supreme court of the Holy Roman Empire. Considered an attack on the principles of the Public Peace of 1495, the Revolution seemed, in the eyes of the Empire, to have to be crushed as quickly as possible. From then on, and in accordance with imperial public law, the Chamber entrusted the Circle of Westphalia with the responsibility of enforcing its sentences. But the three prince-directors of the Circle, the Duke of Juliers and Elector Palatine, the Bishop of Münster and Archiepiscopal Elector of Cologne, and the Duke of Cleves and Elector of Brandenburg, disagreed on the fate of the people of Liège. While the first two were in favour of strict execution, the third, who was also King of Prussia, officially favoured dialogue and benevolent conciliation. The Chamber took umbrage at this difference of opinion, urging the Prince-Directors to intervene before the Liège Revolution got out of hand. On the basis of his position as Prince-Director and in order to preserve the option of negotiation between the parties, Frederick William II of Prussia took the initiative by sending a military contingent commanded by General de Schlieffen in December 1789. But behind the legal and official arguments, this interference was to maintain a high degree of instability in the Austrian Netherlands and on the French border. The Prussians' plans against Austria left little doubt as to Frederick William II's intentions. Faced with the reproaches of the princes and the emperor, the king nonetheless sought to reassure, while laying down his conditions. Firstly, his army would not make any arrests despite the imperial sentences. Secondly, the Prussian commissioners would ensure that the constitutional reforms of the Revolution followed their course, in particular by refusing to reinstate the exiled magistrates. Thirdly, the regent of the principality, elected by the revolutionaries, would retain his position but under the supervision of Berlin. These concessions reassured the revolutionaries who had rallied behind the Prussian officials. Better equipped, the Prussian army kept the Austrian forces at bay, themselves confronted with the Brabant Revolution and the Austro-Turkish War. Barracksed throughout 1790, the Berlin force allowed the revolutionary institutions, and in particular the courts, to continue their activities. For its part, the Imperial Chamber stepped up its condemnations. The failure to comply with its demands, coupled with the failure of the negotiations between the Prince-Directors and the conclusion of the Reichenbach Convention, put increasing pressure on Frederick William II, who gradually withdrew his troops, leaving the Revolution to coast until the addition of the Burgundy Circle, and therefore Austria, in December 1790. During this period, relations between the revolutionaries and their protector fluctuated as the former became more radical towards the latter. While Berlin maintained its position with regard to the first constitutional reforms in Liège (e.g. free election of burgomasters), the hardening of demands against the link with the Holy Roman Empire reduced the tolerance threshold of the princes in favour of the prince-bishop in exile. This paper examines this Prussian intervention by focusing on the relations between the occupying army, the revolutionary institutions and the imperial justice system. It looks successively at the legal conditions of the incursion, the reaction of the imperial authorities and then the relationship, within the principality, that the military maintained with the revolutionaries and their demands. In particular, the aim is to understand how this military presence influenced the constitutional work of the Liège Revolution and how it contributed to the weakening of imperial justice. Similarly, we analyse the legal conflict between the revolutionary institutions, supported by Prussia, and the government in exile, protected by Austria. In addition to the first institutional collections from Liège, held in the State Archives in Liège, we must add the important correspondence maintained by the diplomats who remained in Liège during the troubles of 1789 to 1795, namely the Austrian chargé d'affaires, the French chargé d'affaires and the Prussian minister plenipotentiary. Unlike institutional documents in the strict sense of the term, these set out the issues and interests at stake during the period of occupation, while also serving as an almost daily record of how the situation was evolving, thus confirming Paul Harsin's observation that the definitive history of the Liège Revolution had yet to be written.