Electorate of Hanover

Civil ensign of Hanover (1727–1801).

In 1714, George Louis became king of Great Britain and Ireland and so the electorate and Great Britain and Ireland were ruled in personal union. The possessions of the electors in Germany also grew, as they de facto purchased the formerly-Swedish-held duchies of Bremen and Verden in 1719.

George Louis died in 1727 and was succeeded by his son George II Augustus. In 1728, Emperor Charles VI officially enfeoffed George II (gave him land in exchange for a pledge of service), with the reverted fief of Saxe-Lauenburg, which had de facto been ruled in personal union with Hanover and with one of its preceding Principality of Lüneburg since 1689.

In 1731, Hanover also gained Hadeln.[4] In return, Hanover recognised the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, which changed the Habsburgs' inheritance law.[4] It took George II Augustus until 1733 to persuade Charles VI to enfeoff him also with the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden, colloquially called Duchies of Bremen-Verden. At both enfeoffments, George II Augustus swore that he would respect the existing privileges and constitutions of the estates in Bremen-Verden and in Hadeln, thus confirming 400-year-old traditions of estate participation in government.

In Hanover, the capital of the Electorate, the Privy Council of Hanover (electoral government) installed a new ministry in charge of the Imperial Estates ruled by the Electors in personal union. It was called the Department of Bremen-Verden, Hadeln, Lauenburg and Bentheim. However, the Electors spent most of their time in England. Direct contact with the electorate was maintained through the office of the German Chancery, situated in St James's Palace in London.

During the French and Indian War (1754–1763) in the North American colonies, Britain feared a French invasion of Hanover. George II formed an alliance with his Brandenburg-Prussian cousin Frederick II combining the North American conflict with the Brandenburg-Prusso–Austrian Third Silesian, or Seven Years' War (1756–1763).

In the summer of 1757, the French invaded Hanover and defeated George II's son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, leading the Anglo-Hanoverian army, at the Battle of Hastenbeck and drove him and his army into remote Bremen-Verden, where in the former Zeven Convent he capitulated on 18 September (Convention of Kloster-Zeven). However, George II did not recognise the convention. The following year, the British Army, supported by troops from Brandenburg-Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the ducal Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg (Wolfenbüttel), again expelled the occupants.

Hanover remained unaffected for the rest of the war. After the war ended, peace prevailed until the French Revolutionary Wars started. The War of the First Coalition against France (1792–1797) with Great Britain, Hanover and other war allies forming the coalition, did not affect Hanoverian territory since the first French Republic was fighting on several fronts, even on its own territory. However, men were drafted to recruit the 16,000 Hanoverian soldiers fighting in the Low Countries under British command against France. In 1795, the Holy Roman Empire declared its neutrality, including Hanover, but a peace treaty with France was being negotiated until it failed in 1799. Brandenburg-Prussia, however, ended for its part the war with France by the Treaty of Basel (1795), which stipulated that Brandenburg-Prussia would ensure the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all of the latter's territories north of the demarcation line of the River Main, including the British continental dominions of Hanover, Bremen-Verden, and Saxe-Lauenburg. To that end, Hanover also had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining the armed neutrality.[5]

During the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802) Napoléon Bonaparte urged Prussia to occupy the continental British dominions. In 1801, there was an invasion of 24,000 Prussian soldiers that surprised Hanover, which surrendered without a fight. In April they arrived at Bremen-Verden's capital, Stade, and stayed there until October. The British first ignored Prussian hostility, but when the latter joined the pro-French coalition of armed neutral powers, including Denmark-Norway and Russia, Britain began to capture Prussian ships. After the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), the coalition fell apart and Prussia withdrew its troops.

As part of the German Mediatisation of 25 February 1803, the Electorate received the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück in real union, which had been ruled by every second ruler of the House of Hanover since 1662.

After Britain, this time without any allies, had declared war on France (18 May 1803), French troops invaded Hanover on 26 May. According to the Convention of Artlenburg (5 July 1803), confirming the military defeat of Hanover, the Hanoverian Army was disarmed, and its horses and ammunitions were handed over to the French. The Privy Council of Hanover, with the minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer holding up the Hanoverian stake, fled to Saxe-Lauenburg, across the Elbe, which was ruled by Britain and Hanover in personal union. Soon, the French also occupied Saxe-Lauenburg.

In the autumn of 1805, at the beginning of the War of the Third Coalition against France (1805), the French occupying troops left Hanover in a campaign against Austria. British, Swedish and Russian coalition forces captured Hanover. In December, the French Empire, since 1804 France's new government, ceded Hanover, which it no longer held, to Brandenburg-Prussia, which captured it in early 1806.

On 6 August 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, thereby abolishing the function of prince-electors electing its emperors. Thus, the title of Elector of Brandenburg became meaningless for the Kingdom of Prussia. After it had turned against France, it was defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (11 November 1806), and France recaptured Hanover.

Following the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the new Kingdom of Westphalia was founded, ruled by Napoléon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then including territories of the former Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, the ducal Brunswick-Lünebergian principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and formerly-Prussian territories. In early 1810 Hanover proper and Bremen-Verden but not Saxe-Lauenburg were also annexed by Westphalia. In an attempt to assert the Continental System, the French Empire annexed in late 1810 all of the continental North Sea coast (as far as Denmark) and the areas along the sections of the rivers navigable for seagoing vessels, including Bremen-Verden and Saxe-Lauenburg and some adjacent territories of Hanover proper.

However, the government of George III did not recognise the French annexation and was at war continuously with France for the entire period, and Hanoverian ministers continued to operate out of London. The Privy Council of Hanover maintained its own separate diplomatic service, which maintained links with countries such as Austria and Prussia. The Hanoverian Army was dissolved, but many of the officers and soldiers went to England, where they formed the King's German Legion. That was the only German army to fight continually throughout the Napoleonic Wars against the French.

French control lasted until October 1813, when the territory was overrun by Russian troops, and the Battle of Leipzig later that month spelled the definitive end to the Napoleonic client state of Westphalia, as well as the entire Confederation of the Rhine, and the rule of the House of Hanover was restored. The former electorate became the Kingdom of Hanover, which was confirmed at the Congress of Vienna in 1814.