Capital of the Netherlands but also for royal weddings (note though that royal burials take place in Delft), and also because of its dominant position in Dutch history. From the end of the 16th century the city grew rapidly to become the largest and most powerful city in the Netherlands and the main centre of trade, commerce, finance and culture. The origins of the split between Amsterdam as capital city and The Hague as seat of government lay in the peculiar Dutch constitutional history. From the middle-ages to the sixteenth century, The Hague had been the seat of government of the County of Holland
Military history of the Netherlands Napoleon restyled the Netherlands (along with a small part of what is now Germany) into the Kingdom of Holland, with his brother Louis (Lodewijk) Bonaparte as king. This too was short-lived, however. Napoleon incorporated the Netherlands into the French empire after his brother put Dutch interests ahead of those of the French. The French occupation of the Netherlands ended in 1813 after Napoleon was defeated, a defeat in which William V of Orange played a prominent role. From 1795 to 1806, the Batavian Republic ("Bataafse Republiek" in Dutch) designated the Netherlands as a republic modeled after the French Republic, to