Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all Imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire's formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.
Date
6 August 1806
- Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire; succeeded chiefly by the short-lived Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine and then the Habsburg-Lorraine-led German Confederation
- The House of Habsburg-Lorraine continues to rule as Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary
- The German Question, concerning the possibility of German unification; eventually resulting in the formation of the German Empire
The Holy Roman Empire by the time of the 18th century was widely regarded by contemporaries, both inside and outside the empire, as a highly "irregular" monarchy and "sick", having an "unusual" form of government. The empire lacked both a central standing army and a central treasury and its monarchs, formally elective rather than hereditary, could not exercise effective central control. Even then, most contemporaries believed that the empire could be revived and modernized. The Holy Roman Empire finally began its true terminal decline during and after its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
Although the empire defended itself quite well initially, war with France and Napoleon proved catastrophic. In 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the French, which Francis II responded to by proclaiming himself the Emperor of Austria, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor, an attempt at maintaining parity between France and Austria while also illustrating that the Holy Roman title outranked them both. Austria's defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the secession of a large number of Francis II's German vassals in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite state, effectively meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The abdication in August 1806, combined with a dissolution of the entire Imperial hierarchy and its institutions, was seen as necessary to prevent the possibility of Napoleon proclaiming himself Holy Roman Emperor, something which would have reduced Francis II to Napoleon's vassal.
Reactions to the empire's dissolution ranged from indifference to despair. The populace of Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, were horrified at the loss of the empire. Many of Francis II's former subjects questioned the legality of his actions; though his abdication was agreed to be perfectly legal, the dissolution of the empire and the release of all its vassals were seen as beyond the emperor's authority. As such, many of the empire's princes and subjects refused to accept that the empire was gone, with some commoners going so far as to believe that news of its dissolution was a plot by their local authorities. In Germany, the dissolution was widely compared to the ancient and semi-legendary Fall of Troy and some associated the end of what they perceived to be the Roman Empire with the end times and the apocalypse.
Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine[edit]
Throughout the first half of 1806, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg attempted to steer an independent course between the demands of the empire and Napoleon. In April 1806, Napoleon sought a treaty whereby the three states would ally themselves to France in perpetuity while forswearing participation in future Reichskriege (imperial war efforts) and submitting to a commission de méditation under his presidency to resolve their disputes. Despite all of this, they were to remain members of the empire. Württemberg ultimately refused to sign.[29]
In June 1806, Napoleon began pressuring Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg for the creation of confédération de la haute Allemagne (Upper German confederation) outside the empire.[29] On 12 July 1806, these three states and thirteen other minor German princes formed the Confederation of the Rhine, effectively a French satellite state.[30] On 1 August, the Reichstag was informed by a French envoy that Napoleon no longer recognized the existence of the Holy Roman Empire and on the same day, nine of the princes who had formed the Confederation of the Rhine issued a proclamation in which they justified their actions by claiming that the Holy Roman Empire had already collapsed and ceased to function due to the defeat in the Battle of Austerlitz.[30]