Money Monday - 3 Centimes, Kingdom of Westphalia (1809)

Obverse: Monogram [HN for Hieronymus Napoleon]

Reverse: 3 CENT./KOEN V WESTPH FR PR 1809 [3 Centimes/Kingdom of Westphalia, France and Prussia]

Welcome to another Money Monday, where we’re going to try and explain the complicated federal states of Germany in the early nineteenth century through a 3 centime piece.

This coin was minted in the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia, and it initially caught our eye because of the monogram on the back. It stands for Hieronymus Napoleon, one of the names the King of Westphalia Jerome Napoleon went under. He was the youngest brother of the more famous Napoleon Bonaparte, who created the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807 after signing the Peace of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia.

The Treaty stripped away half of Prussia’s territories, most of which were combined into the Kingdom of Westphalia even though barely any of the traditional territory of Westphalia was in it. It was essentially a French vassal-state, meaning they were part of the French Empire in everything but name. Napoleon duly set about implementing a punishing taxation of money and men on the Kingdom, but also instituted Germany’s first written constitution which liberated the serfs, gave everyone equal rights (including Jewish people) and allowed everyone the right to a fair trial.

So, swings and roundabouts. The Kingdom of Westphalia, however, didn’t last very long.

Specifically, it lasted from 1807-1813. Peace in Europe did not survive the Peace of Telsit and Napoleon made his infamous mistake of conducting a land war with Russia in the winter of 1812. Tchaikovsky, of course, made a whole overture to celebrate the victory.

To cut a long story short, the Kingdom of Westphalia went bankrupt in the same year and was overrun by the Grand Alliance in 1813, when Prussia took back all of its land plus some.

Napoleon went on to lose the Napoleonic Wars, which officially ended with the Treaty of Vienna (1814-1815). In this Treaty Westphalia again became a part of Prussia. It also laid the foundations for the future German state with the formation of the loose German Confederation, which finally ended the Holy Roman Empire. The Prussian Chancellor Bismarck, shrewd in war and diplomacy, built on his territorial gains to eventually tie many German states into the North German Federation and, after wars with Austria and France, united the main German territories into the German Empire in 1871.

Previously, however, the German states had their own rulers and their own coinage – at one point, there were over 200 different types of currencies circulating in central Europe. People often say of the unification of Germany that it made the exchange rate a lot easier to manage.

Images

“King Jerome Bonaparte” by François Gérard. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

“Kingdom of Westphalia (1812)” by TRAJAN 117. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.