THE DISSOLUTION OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
(1806)
[Napoleon had no desire to unify
The undersigned, charge d'affaires of his Majesty the emperor of the French and king of Italy, at the general diet of the German empire, has received orders from his Majesty to make the following declarations to the diet [of the Holy Roman Empire]:
Their Majesties the kings of Bavaria and of Wurtemberg, the sovereign princes of Ratisbon, Baden, Burg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau, as well as the other leading princes of the south and west of Germany [many more German states joined later], have resolved to form a confederation between themselves which shall secure them against future contingencies, and have thus ceased to be states of the empire.
The position in which the Treaty of Pressburg has explicitly placed the courts allied to France, and indirectly those princes whose territory they border or surround, being incompatible with the existence of an empire, it becomes a necessity for those rulers to reorganize their relations upon a new system and to remove a contradiction which could not fail to be a permanent source of agitation, disquiet, and danger.
France, on the other hand, is
directly interested in the maintenance of peace in southern Germany and yet
must apprehend that the moment she shall cause her troops to recross the Rhine discord, the inevitable consequence of
contradictory, uncertain, and ill-defined conditions, will again disturb the
peace of the people and reopen, possibly, the war on the continent. Feeling it
incumbent upon her to advance the welfare of her allies and to assure them the
enjoyment of all the advantages which the Treaty of Pressburg
secures to them and to which she is pledged,
For a long period successive changes have, from century to century, reduced the German constitution to a shadow of its former self. Time has altered all the relations, in respect to size and importance, which originally existed among the various members of the confederation, both as regards each other and the whole of which they have formed a part.
The diet has no longer a will of
its own; the sentences of the superior courts can no longer be executed;
every-thing indicates such serious weakness that the federal bond no longer
offers any protection whatever and only constitutes a source of dissension and
discord between the powers. The results of three coalitions have increased this
weakness to the last degree. . . . The Treaty of Pressburg
assures complete sovereignty to their Majesties the kings of
His Majesty the emperor and king is, therefore, compelled to declare that he can no longer acknowledge the existence of the German constitution, recognizing, how-ever, the entire and absolute sovereignty of each of the princes whose states compose Germany to-day, maintaining with them the same relations as with the other independent powers of Europe.
His Majesty the emperor and king has accepted the
title, of Protector of the Confederation of the
Having thus provided for the dearest interests of his people and of his
neighbors, and having assured, so far as in him lay, the future peace of
Europe, and that of Germany in particular, heretofore constantly the theater of
war, by removing a contradiction which placed people and princes alike under
the delusive protection of a system contrary both to their political interests
and to their treaties, his Majesty the emperor and king trusts that the nations
of Europe will at last close their ears to the insinuations of those who would
maintain an eternal war upon the continent. He trusts that the French armies
which have crossed the Rhine have done so for the last time, and that the people
of
His Majesty declared that he would never extend the limits of
RATISBON, August 1, 1806