Confederated States of the Rhine Rheinbund (German) États confédérés du Rhin (French)
1806–1813
Commemorative medal
The Confederation of the Rhine in 1811
Status	Client state of the French Empire
Capital	Frankfurt
Common languages	German, French
Religion	Catholicism Protestantism
Demonym(s)	Rhenish
Government	Confederated French client states
Protector
• 1806–1813	Napoleon I
Prince-Primate
• 1806–1813	Karl von Dalberg
• 1813	E. de Beauharnais
Legislature	Diet of the Confederation
Historical era	Napoleonic Wars
• Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine	12 July 1806
• Holy Roman Empire dissolved	6 August 1806
• Dissolved after Battle of Leipzig	4 November 1813
Preceded by Succeeded by Holy Roman Empire German Confederation
Today part of	Germany Liechtenstein Austria

The Confederated States of the Rhine,^[a] simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine,^[b] was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria and Russia at the Battle of Austerlitz. Its creation brought about the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire shortly afterward. The Confederation of the Rhine lasted from 1806 to 1813.^[1]

The founding members of the confederation were German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were later joined by 19 others, altogether ruling a total of over 15 million subjects. This granted a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern frontier by providing a buffer between France and the two largest German states, Prussia and Austria (which also controlled substantial non-German lands).

Background

After the Treaty of Lunéville, which saw the annexation of the German territories of the left bank of the Rhine occupied by France, a new order of Central European states was established. The Final Imperial Recess (Reichsdeputationshauptschluss) of 1803 led to a radical transformation within the Holy Roman Empire. 112 small Imperial territories east of the Rhine became part of newly organised states. Over three million citizens were affected by this change. Soon after, all ecclesiastical territories were secularised and most free imperial cities (Reichsstädte) and free imperial knights (Reichsritter) underwent mediatisation, losing their power and influence in the process. Besides Prussia, the Electorate of Baden and the Duchy of Württemberg benefited the most from these changes. The abolition of the Reichsritter and ecclesiastical territories meant the emperor lost important political support. The end of the crippled Holy Roman Empire was foreseeable. Francis II took the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804 to counter the loss of prestige. When the War of the Third Coalition broke out in 1805, with Russia, Austria and Great Britain on the one side and France on the other, Bavaria, Baden and Wurttemberg allied with Napoleon.

After victory at Austerlitz and the resultant Peace of Pressburg in 1805, Napoleon could significantly reassert his position in the German states. Furthermore, Austria had to concede territory and Napoleon named his brothers Joseph and Louis kings of Naples and Holland, respectively, and his brother-in-law Joachim Murat duke of Berg. He also worked toward establishing an alliance with Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. Francis II had to assent to the elevation of both Bavaria and Württemberg to the rank of kingdom and Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt and Berg to that of grand duchy. Bavaria and Württemberg sought closer dynastic relations with France in the hope of strengthening the legitimacy of their new monarchies. Jérôme Bonaparte was married to Catharina of Württemberg, Stéphanie de Beauharnais to Charles Louis of Baden and Eugène de Beauharnais to Augusta of Bavaria. With French encouragement, the vestiges of small Imperial estates in the region were annexed. This reorganisation of the right bank of the Rhine laid the groundwork for the Confederation of the Rhine.^[2][3]

Formation

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On 12 July 1806, on signing the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine (German: Rheinbundakte) in Paris, 16 German states joined together in a confederation (the treaty called it the états confédérés du Rhinelande, with a precursor in the League of the Rhine).^[4] The "Protector of the Confederation" was a hereditary office of the Emperor of the French, Napoleon. On 1 August, the members of the confederation formally seceded from the Holy Roman Empire, and on 6 August, following an ultimatum by Napoleon, Francis II declared the Holy Roman Empire dissolved. Francis and his Habsburg dynasty continued as emperors of Austria.

Chart for the structure of the Confederation as projected in 1806

According to the treaty, the confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, but the individual states (in particular the larger ones) wanted unlimited sovereignty.^[1] Instead of a monarchical head of state, as the Holy Roman Emperor had had, its highest office was held by Karl Theodor von Dalberg, the former Arch Chancellor, who now bore the title of a Prince-Primate of the confederation. As such, he was President of the College of Kings and presided over the Diet of the Confederation, designed to be a parliament-like body although it never actually assembled.^[1] The President of the Council of the Princes was the Prince of Nassau-Usingen.

In return for their support of Napoleon, some rulers were given higher statuses: Baden, Hesse, Cleves, and Berg were made into grand duchies, and Württemberg and Bavaria became kingdoms. Several member states were also enlarged with the absorption of the territories of Imperial counts and knights who were mediatized at that time. They had to pay a very high price for their new status, however. The Confederation was above all a military alliance; the member states had to maintain substantial armies for mutual defense and supply France with large numbers of military personnel. As events played out, the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs when they were within the Holy Roman Empire.^[5]

After Prussia lost to France in 1806, Napoleon cajoled most of the secondary states of Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine. Eventually, an additional 23 German states joined the Confederation. It was at its largest in 1808, when it included 36 states—four kingdoms, five grand duchies, 13 duchies, seventeen principalities, and the Free Hansa towns of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen.^[1] The west bank of the Rhine and the Principality of Erfurt had been annexed outright by the French Empire. Thus, as either emperor of the French or protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Napoleon was now the overlord of all of Germany except Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein, and Swedish Pomerania, plus previously independent Switzerland, which were not included in the Confederation.

In 1810 large parts of what is now northwest Germany were quickly annexed to France in order to better monitor the trade embargo with Great Britain, the Continental System.

The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813, in the aftermath of Napoleon's failed invasion of the Russian Empire. Many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig, when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition.

Types of states within the Confederation

Both French influence and internal autonomy varied greatly throughout the confederations' existence. There was also a great variation between the power and influence of the individual states. There are three basic types:

• The first group formed the "Model States", which were mostly ruled by relatives of Napoleon. These include the Kingdom of Westphalia^{[6][page needed]} under Jérôme Bonaparte. The Grand Duchy of Berg was first administered by Joachim Murat before he was appointed King of Naples in 1808, and then by Napoleon himself. The third model state was the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, which was run by the house of Dalberg until 1813. Because of the collapse of the Napoleonic supremacy, this position could no longer justify its own existence. These new foundations were intended to serve as a model for the remaining Rhine federal states through their legal and social policies, such as the Napoleonic Code.
• The second group were the reform states of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt. These were not dependent areas but in many ways Napoleon's true allies. Although these states took inspiration from the French model, they also went their own way. The historian Lothar Gall suggested that the rulers of the Confederation of the Rhine were made revolutionaries by Napoleon himself. Opposition to the emperor would have been possible only by renouncing the power that he had given to them. "He had not made satellites which were politically incapable of action and forced to be obedient through use of force, but real allies who followed in his well-understood policy reasons of state."^[7]
• A third group formed the states that joined after 1806. These included the numerous smaller northern and central German territories, except for Saxony. In these, the internal changes were minimal.^[8] The reforms remained significantly limited in these states. However, there were also considerable differences among these states. In Mecklenburg and Saxony, the old structures remained almost unchanged. In the Duchy of Nassau, on the other hand, Minister Ernst Franz Ludwig Marshal von Bieberstein ensured moderate administrative modernization and the introduction of religious tolerance.

Member monarchies

The following table shows the members of the confederation, with their date of joining, as well as the number of troops provided, listed in parentheses.^[9]

Member states of the Confederation of the Rhine

1806

1808 (greatest extent)

1812

College of Kings

Member monarchy	Year joined	Notes
Grand Duchy of Baden	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; former margraviate-electorate (8,000)
Kingdom of Bavaria	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; former duchy-electorate (30,000)
Grand Duchy of Berg	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; absorbed Cleves, both formerly Duchies (5,000)
Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; former landgraviate-electorate (4,000)
Principality of Regensburg	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; formerly Prince-Archbishopric and Electorate; after 1810 the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt (968 of 4,000)
Kingdom of Saxony	11 Dec 1806	Former duchy-electorate (20,000)
Kingdom of Westphalia	15 Nov 1807	Napoleonic creation (25,000)
Kingdom of Württemberg	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; former duchy-electorate (12,000)
Grand Duchy of Würzburg	23 Sep 1806	Napoleonic creation (2,000) for former Grand duke of Tuscany and Elector of Salzburg

College of Princes

Member monarchy	Year joined	Notes
Duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg	11 Apr 1807	(700)
Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau	11 Apr 1807	(700)
Duchy of Anhalt-Köthen	11 Apr 1807	(700)
Duchy of Arenberg	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; mediatized 13 December 1810 (379 of 4,000)
Principality of Hohenzollern-Hechingen	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder (97 of 4,000)
Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder (193 of 4,000)
Principality of Isenburg	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder (291 of 4,000)
Principality of Leyen	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder; former countship or graviate (29 of 4,000)
Principality of Liechtenstein	12 Jul 1806	Co-founder (40 of 4,000)
Principality of Lippe-Detmold	11 Apr 1807	(650)
Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin	22 Mar 1808	(1,900)
Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz	18 Feb 1808	(400)
Duchy of Nassau (Usingen and Weilburg)	12 Jul 1806*	Union of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg, both co-founders (1,680 of 4,000)
Duchy of Oldenburg	14 Oct 1808	annexed by France 13 December 1810 (800)
Principality of Reuss-Ebersdorf	11 Apr 1807	(400)
Principality of Reuss-Greiz	11 Apr 1807	(400)
Principality of Reuss-Lobenstein	11 Apr 1807	(400)
Principality of Reuss-Schleiz	11 Apr 1807	(400)
Principality of Salm (Salm-Salm and Salm-Kyrburg)	25 Jul 1806	Co-founder; annexed by France 13 December 1810 (323 of 4,000)
Duchy of Saxe-Coburg	15 Dec 1806	(Saxon duchies total 2,000)
Duchy of Saxe-Gotha	15 Dec 1806
Duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen	15 Dec 1806
Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen	15 Dec 1806
Duchy of Saxe-Weimar	15 Dec 1806
Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe	11 Apr 1807	(650)
Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt	11 Apr 1807	(650)
Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen	11 Apr 1807	(650)
Principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont	11 Apr 1807	(400)

Aftermath

The allies opposing Napoleon dissolved the Confederation of the Rhine on 4 November 1813. After its demise, the only attempt at political coordination in Germany until the creation on 8 June 1815 of the German Confederation was a body called the Central Administration Council (German: Zentralverwaltungsrat); its President was Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein (1757–1831). It was dissolved on 20 June 1815.

On 30 May 1814 the Treaty of Paris declared the German states independent.

In 1814–1815, the Congress of Vienna redrew the continent's political map. Napoleonic creations such as the huge Kingdom of Westphalia, the Grand Duchy of Berg and the Duchy of Würzburg were abolished; suppressed states, including Hanover, the Brunswick duchies, Hesse-Kassel and Oldenburg, were reinstated. On the other hand, most members of the Confederation of the Rhine located in central and southern Germany survived with minor border changes. They, along with the reinstated states, Prussia, and Austria, formed the German Confederation.^[10]