Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
, in which a large number of previously
independent small political units were abolished or subordinated to larger rulers.
Thus around 350 free Imperial knights and counts lost their independence and
‘unmediated’ status below the Emperor, and were subordinated instead to
territorial rulers. Around 112 political units were abolished, including twenty
archbishoprics and prince-bishoprics, forty abbeys and convents, and all except
six of the free cities. Many territorial rulers not surprisingly rather welcomed the
additions to the size and status of their states, choosing to ignore Napoleon’s
wider aims of achieving a colonial status for their parts of Germany. With vast
areas of Europe at his feet, Napoleon had himself crowned emperor in the
autumn of 1804. Francis II of Austria chose at the same time to take on the title
of Emperor of Austria. Under these circumstances, the smaller German states
who had benefited from Napoleonic reforms chose to secede from the Holy
Roman Empire and put themselves under the protection of France. In July 1806,
Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine (
Rheinbund
), consisting of
sixteen German states (including Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-
Darmstadt) as well as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (which lay outside the Holy
Roman Empire). The Confederation adopted the Napoleonic Code and instituted
a range of reforms including the abolition of serfdom. On 6 August 1806 the by
now essentially meaningless Holy Roman Empire was formally abolished.
Plate 20.
The battle of Jena, 1806.
Prussia had remained neutral since 1795. In September 1806, however, King
Frederick William III (1797–1840) rather unwisely decided on war with France.
The Prussian army, which by the later eighteenth century, after decades of non-
reform, had fallen into a state of indiscipline and ill-preparedness, suffered a
major military defeat against the then powerful French army in the Battle of Jena
on 14 October 1806. In the 1807 Peace of Tilsit Prussia lost all territories west of
the Elbe to France, as well as some eastern territories. Prussia also had to pay
indemnities, and to make contributions of men and money to Napoleon’s further
campaigns. This defeat provided both the opportunity and the impetus for a
series of reforms in Prussia.
The Prussian reforms neither amounted to a single coherent programme, nor
were carried by a close-knit, homogenous group of reformers. (Indeed, two of
the main reformers, often linguistically linked by a hyphen in the misleading
phrase ‘Stein-Hardenberg reforms’, personally detested each other.) A minority
of reformers exploited the situation after the Prussian defeat to effect certain
previous plans for reform, while other measures were taken as a form of
‘defensive modernisation’ or specifically to deal with current exigencies,
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