Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam - Aftermath

Aftermath

The previous night, around midnight of 18 January, stadtholder William V followed his wife Wilhelmina, who had left the previous morning, into exile, boarding a fishing vessel at the Scheveningen beach. Much of the Pro-British faction of the city of Amsterdam fled along with the Prince of Orange, so there was very little opposition to the change of power. The British armies made no effort to retake Amsterdam, instead they continued retreating towards Bremen in Hanover – from where they were eventually evacuated in March 1795.

The model of the transfer of power in Amsterdam was soon followed in other Dutch cities not yet occupied by the French. Revolutionary committees sprang up left and right, demanding surrender of the ruling city councils to new provisional administrations and the disarmament of the Orangist civic militias and their replacement with "Free Corps" companies from the days of the 1785–1787 Patriot Revolt. In this way Schiedam, Haarlem and Leeuwarden, to mention a few, experienced peaceful revolutions of their own. Only the Orangist stronghold of The Hague held out; its Orangist city government sought its own accommodation with the French and it was only replaced on 26 February.