The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

AUG 06 1806 · 12:00

The Holy Roman Empire on the eve of its dissolution, in its final 1789 configuration before Napoleon's reordering of the German lands. Place: Vienna Figures: Francis II, last Holy Roman Emperor (continuing as Francis I of Austria) · Napoleon, founding the Confederation of the Rhine · the sixteen princes who seceded from the Empire on 12 July Austerlitz, Then the Rhine Confederation Napoleon destroys an Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805. The Peace of Pressburg three weeks later strips Habsburg territories in Italy and Germany and recognizes Bavaria and Württemberg as kingdoms. Six months later, on 12 July 1806, sixteen German princes sign the act founding the Rheinbund, the Confederation of the Rhine, under Napoleon's protection. They formally secede from the Empire on 1 August. Francis II, having reigned in Vienna since 1792 and having already (in 1804) taken the precautionary title Emperor of Austria, now faces the prospect that Napoleon might claim the imperial title himself or designate one of his marshals. On 6 August Francis issues a brief proclamation: he releases all imperial estates from their obligations to him, dissolves the bond, and lays down the crown. After 1006 Years The Empire founded when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne on Christmas Day 800 dissolves after 1006 years. The Peace of Westphalia (see [[peace-of-westphalia-1648]]) had already rendered the Empire effectively a loose federation of sovereign principalities; 6 August 1806 removes even the ceremonial cap. The German lands are now plainly a system of states (the kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony; the grand duchies; the free cities) loosely organized under Napoleonic suzerainty until 1813, then under the German Confederation (1815 to 1866), then under Prussian leadership. Voltaire's famous quip (the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire) is now retrospectively legible as an epitaph. The institution that had survived the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, the rise of France, and a century and a half of post-Westphalian decay finally cannot survive a Corsican general who is willing to declare the question moot. The Roman imperial title, transmitted from Augustus through Charlemagne to Francis, lapses. The German question, which 1648 had answered with a constitutional fiction, is now genuinely open. Video: How Austerlitz, the Confederation of the Rhine, and Francis II's abdication ended eight centuries of Reich.