Confederation of the Rhine

The Confederation of the Rhine was a league of German states under Napoleon's protection, founded on 12th July 1806 and dissolved after Leipzig in 1813. Formed by sixteen princes who seceded from the Holy Roman Empire at Napoleon's bidding, it gave him a buffer zone between France and Prussia, Austria and Russia, plus troops and money. Its members, including Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, were raised to kingdoms in exchange for alliance, while Napoleon ruled as Protector. The Confederation's creation forced Emperor Francis II to dissolve the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire in August 1806. At its height it counted over thirty states and it spread Napoleonic legal reforms across Germany. When Bavaria defected to the allies before Leipzig, the Confederation collapsed, but its mediatisation of tiny states permanently simplified the map of Germany. Its constitution promised representative institutions that mostly remained paper, but its customs union foreshadowed the later Zollverein. Napoleon himself called it the keystone of his German system.