Napoléon, feeling in 1808 that the Batavian…
July 1810 CE
The alternative would have been outright annexation to France.
Despite these circumstances, many citizens had been very happy with his arrival, but there had also been opposition, because many feared the new King would introduce the dreaded conscription.
This Louis would not do, much to the dismay of Napoléon, who had demanded that King Louis raise a large army to guard the North from British invasion, and to aid the French armies in Germany and Spain.
Apart from the lavishly uniformed Royal Guard, the army of the Kingdom of Holland has always beeen short of recruits, leading to units being disbanded or amalgamated.
Acts to recruit more troops, for instance by raising a Jewish regiment or by adding all male orphans to the army as Velites, had been of little effect, the latter leading to public riots and accusations of introducing the conscription.
Napoléon had intended for Louis to be little more than the prefect of Holland.
The ministers had been provided mostly by Napoléon.
However, Louis has his own mind, and is determined to be as independent of his elder brother as possible.
In addition to refusing to introduce conscription, he had declared himself Dutch rather than French and had demanded that his ministers renounce their French citizenship as well.
He has made a sincere effort to learn the Dutch language, and requires his court and ministers to only speak Dutch.
He has gone so far as to adopt the Dutch spelling of his name, Lodewijk.
Due to the economic blockade enforced by Napoléon, the economy of the Kingdom of Holland had been further ruined; the smuggling of British goods has increased.
Louis had hesitated to oppose this, which led Napoléon to sending units of Douanes Imperiales to Holland.
After British troops invaded Walcheren in 1809, Napoléon had become fed up with his hesitant brother and had decided to make Holland an integral part of France.
After annexing the southern provinces of Holland into the Empire, he forces King Louis to abdicate on July 9, 1810.
Louis' son (and Napoléon's nephew), Napoléon Louis, reigns for a week as Louis (Lodewijk) II before Napoléon annexes the rest of the kingdom into the French Empire.
During this period Queen Hortense had acted as Regent of the Kingdom.