1666-1740







Kleve-Mark, 1740-1815



During the SEVEN YEARS WAR (1756-1763) Kleve and Mark suffered a French invasion (among others, Unna was sacked). The southern County Mark, with her steep valleys, saw the development of an early industry utilizing water mills as energy supplies, producing steel (iron ores were brought in from Siegen) as well as iron tools (anvils, hammers, files etc.) and products (wire). In 1767 a DEPUTATION CHAMBER was established in Hamm, in 1787 elevated into a WAR AND DOMAINS CHAMBER, an administrative body intended to promote the county's economy and utilize it for the royal treasury. The Ruhr River was made navigable in 1780. FREIHERR VOM STEIN, factory owner in Wetter, was appointed as director of the mining supervision authority in 1780; COAL MINING was intensified. In 1811, FRIEDRICH KRUPP established the Krupp factory in Essen.

King Frederick the Great in 1741 permitted religious refugees from the Palatinate to settle in the Duchy of Kleve (PFALZDORF, LOUISENDORF). WESEL was a Prussian fortress and garrison, the fact limiting the city's potential for growth, as the glacis had to be kept free. DUISBURG had a university.

In the PEACE OF BASEL 1795, Prussia had to cede her lands to the west of the Rhine, i.e. PRUSSIAN GELDERLAND, MOERS, the larger part of the Duchy of Kleve. The areas formed part of the Rhenish Republic and later were annexed into France. In 1802/1803 Prussia was compensated by territorial acquisitions including the Princebishopric of PADERBORN and the larger part of the Princebishopric of MÜNSTER, as well as the abbeys of ESSEN and WERDEN, long Prussian protectorates. The annexation of HANNOVER in 1805 established, for the first time, territorial connection of Mark with Brandenburg; Prussia ceded what was left of Kleve to the GRAND DUCHY OF BERG. However, Prussia had to cede all her territories to the west of the Elbe River in the PEACE OF TILSIT in 1807; Mark also was annexed by the Grand Duchy of Berg. In 1810 the right bank of the Duchy of Kleve was annexed by France; Mark remained part of Berg. In 1813 the entire area, i.e. Kleve to both banks of the Rhine, Prussian Gelderland, Mark and her dependencies, reverted to Prussia. At the VIENNA CONGRESS of 1815 Prussia's possessions in the Rhineland and Westphalia were vastly extended and their western border (with the Netherlands) redrawn, resulting in minor territorial changes.



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EXTERNAL
FILES 		Von den freien Reichsstiften zur Grossstadt (from free imperial abbeys to industrial city), by Rainer Busch, in German, on Essen/Werden, focusses on period 1802ff
Wanderung durch die Geschichte Kettwigs 1758-1796, from Kettwig Online, detailed chronology of the Essen suburb of Kettwig, in German
DOCUMENTS List of Dukes/Counts, posted by Thomas Hoeckmann
Map of the Duchy of Kleve in 1789, posted by Thomas Hoeckmann, of Mark, same source; another map 1789, posted on The German Reigning Houses by Val Rozn
Map featuring the Kleve (Cleves) and Mark in 1792, from Gardiner's Atlas of English History, 1892
REFERENCE Territorien-Ploetz : Geschichte der Deutschen Länder, Vol.1, Würzburg 1964, pp.171, 401
Coins of Kleve 1601-1700, in Krause, Mishler, Standard Catalog of World Coins : Seventeenth Century 1601-1700, 2nd ed., 2000, pp.426-427; of Mark p.598 Coins of Kleve, 1701-1800, in : Krause, Mishler, Standard Catalog of World Coins : Eighteenth Century 1701-1800, 2nd ed., 1887, pp.326-327; p.773 on coins issued by the abbey of Werden, on pp.454-455 of the abbey of Essen



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on January 3rd 2002, last revised on January 15th 2007

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