Hesse-Kassel and the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg (Wolfenbüttel) expelled again the occupants. Bremen-Verden remained unaffected for the rest of the war and after its end peace prevailed until the French Revolutionary Wars started. The War of the First Coalition against France (1793–1797) with Britain and the Hanover Electorate and other war allies forming the coalition, didn't affect Bremen-Verden's territory, since the French First Republic was fighting on several fronts, even on its own territory. But also in Bremen-Verden men were drafted in order to recruit the 16,000 Hanoverian soldiers fighting in the Low Countries under British command against Revolutionary France. In 1795, the Holy Roman Empire declared its neutrality, which of course included the British Electorate of Hanover, and a peace treaty with France was under negotiation until it failed in 1799. By this time the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802) started and Napoléon Bonaparte urged Brandenburg-Prussia to occupy Hanover. In the Treaty of Basel of 1795 which Brandenburg-Prussia and France had stipulated, Brandenburg-Prussia would ensure the neutrality of the Holy Roman Empire in all the latter's territories north the demarcation line of the river Main, including Hanover. To this end also Hanover had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining the armed neutrality. But in 1801, 24,000 Prussian soldiers invaded Hanover, which surrendered without a fight. In April 1801, Brandenburg-Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capital of Stade and stayed there until October the same year. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Brandenburg-Prussia's hostility, but when Brandenburg-Prussia joined the pro-French coalition of armed 'neutral' powers such as Denmark-Norway and the Russian Empire, Britain started to capture Brandenburg-Prussian sea vessels. After the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801, the coalition fell apart and Brandenburg-Prussia withdrew its troops. Napoleonic wars (1803–1813) After Britain — without any ally — had declared war on France on 18 May 1803, French troops invaded the Electorate of Hanover on 26 May and installed — among others — two occupation companies in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade on 18 June. According to the Convention of Artlenburg from 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 minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer holding up the Hanoverian stake, had fled to the trans-Elbian Hanoverian territory of Saxe-Lauenburg on