Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (115 page)

Austria was unable to make peace in 1795, because it was bound by alliances with Britain and Russia. The Peace of Basel concentrated the war in south Germany and north Italy, but Austria fought on hoping to decide the Empire’s fate without consulting Prussia.
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Austrian forces held their own during 1796, but increasingly distrusted the remaining south German contingents. The Swabian Kreis troops were forcibly disarmed in July 1796, but Austria was unable to prevent Württemberg and Baden from concluding separate armistices the following month. As in 1740, Austria regarded refusal to cooperate as betrayal, and consequently felt even less compunction to adhere to constitutional norms. Imperial reform was now dictated by military circumstances.
Renewed defeats in 1797 obliged Austria to agree preliminary peace terms at Campo Formio on 18 October, ceding the Rhineland to France and renouncing imperial jurisdiction over north Italy. Crucially, Campo Formio introduced the principle of compensation whereby secular rulers losing possessions through these changes were to be compensated east of the Rhine at the expense of the weaker imperial Estates, with Austria already secretly planning to annex Salzburg.

The public outcry deterred immediate implementation of the terms, while Austrian ministers still hoped to salvage key elements of the old order that they knew would limit Prussia’s potential gains. A congress convened in Rastatt at the end of 1797 to work out the details, but negotiations were delayed by Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt. The next 18 months made it abundantly clear that the fate of the lesser Estates was at stake and they rallied behind Austria when a renewed Russian alliance prompted Francis II to resume the war in 1799. Napoleon returned from Egypt and established himself as First Consul governing France in November. New French victories at Hohenlinden and Marengo in 1800 obliged Austria to sue for peace.

Reorganization of the Empire, 1801–4

Terms agreed at Lunéville in February 1801 broadly repeated those of Campo Formio, allowing France to annex 26,000 square kilometres and 1.8 million people west of the Rhine, as well as confirming that the Austrian Netherlands, Savoy and imperial Italy were no longer part of the Empire. The question of compensation was entrusted to an Imperial Deputation, but in practice was driven by power politics. Prussia already occupied Hanover with French permission in April 1801, setting a precedent for the middling princes who now dealt directly with France and Russia using the fig-leaf argument that these were guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia. France wanted to reorganize much of the Empire into larger territories that might be future allies, while Russia tried to preserve a more traditional balance whilst promoting the interests of dynasties like Württemberg and Hessen-Darmstadt who were related to the Romanovs. Along with Bavaria and Baden, these princes now began occupying neighbouring territories during 1801–2. The changes were belatedly endorsed with minor amendments by the Deputation in a document known as the
Final Decision (
Reichsdeputationshauptschluß
), which was ratified by the Reichstag on 24 March 1803 and accepted by the emperor, the Reichskammergericht and imperial lawyers (
Map 11
).
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Compensation far exceeded the losses west of the Rhine. Prussia got the lion’s share, gaining 10,010 square kilometres with 431,000 inhabitants and nearly 2.5 million talers in annual revenue more than it lost to France. The other principal beneficiaries were Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hessen-Kassel, Hessen-Darmstadt and Hanover, which was restored to Britain and given land, even though it lost nothing west of the Rhine. Austria annexed the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen, while Salzburg, Eichstätt and part of Passau went as a new electorate to Francis II’s younger brother, Ferdinand Joseph, who had been forced to cede Tuscany to France.
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In all, 112 imperial Estates were mediatized or lost to France, including virtually the entire church lands east of the Rhine, totalling 71,225 square kilometres with 2.36 million subjects and 12.72 million florins in annual revenue.

The historical verdict has been the repetitive refrain that the Empire ‘was now as good as dead’.
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This prognosis was still premature, because the majority of the Empire’s inhabitants did not experience 1801 as a total defeat, unlike 1918 or 1945. The territorial reorganization revealed both the strengths and weaknesses of the constitutional order, and it achieved the substance if not the spirit of many of the earlier reform plans through consolidating the Empire into a smaller number of individually larger principalities. Most regarded secularization as rationalization and not as a sin, as had been the case for many Catholics in 1555 and 1648.
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The Final Decision softened the blow by guaranteeing the free exercise of religion as Catholic lands passed to Protestant princes. While burghers mourned the loss of autonomy, some hoped that mediatization would rescue their home towns from the growing burden of debts.
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The assessment was surprisingly upbeat because the changes were thought to be limited to a redistribution of imperial fiefs rather than indicating a repudiation of corporate society. The mediatized authorities and populations only lost their constitutional autonomy, not their other rights. All the beneficiaries accepted binding responsibilities towards the victims, especially the imperial clergy, agreeing to pay annual pensions varying from up to 60,000 florins for former bishops to a tenth of that for former abbesses, while former canons were allowed a generous nine-tenths
of their former incomes.
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Meanwhile, the new governments assumed all liabilities, which could be considerable: Bavaria acquired additional debts of 93 million florins. The lively reform debate continued, still concentrating on technicalities like adjusting the Reichstag and other institutions to align with the recent territorial redistribution.

However, the wider international situation ensured that the Empire no longer controlled its own destiny. All were acutely conscious of Poland’s recent fate when a new constitution intended to secure independence merely hastened external efforts to partition the country out of existence after 1793. Reformers rightly feared that vigorous measures to strengthen the Empire would prompt France to resume the war. Austria was unable to capitalize on renewed imperial patriotism for the same reason, as its forces were in no condition to fight. Deeper, more fundamental factors also inhibited reform. Territorial redistribution had not been a ‘clean sweep’ (
Flurbereinigung
), because formal power was still related to the status hierarchy. Reorganization of the electorates did nothing to reduce Austrian and Prussian influence and merely added to disputes over precedence. The princely college was restructured, giving the counts 53 full votes based on their acquisition of imperial cities and abbeys. The latter were often relatively rich, thus also briefly solving the counts’ debt problems. However, the electors were the primary beneficiaries since they simultaneously received the full votes of the former bishoprics, increasing their share of princely votes to 78 out of the new total of 131. Meanwhile, the consolidation of all Wittelsbach lands through inheritance meant that Bavaria had three times as much land as all counts combined. It was obvious that simply elevating someone like the count of Bretzenheim to princely status did not bring any real influence. Meanwhile, the annexation of four imperial cities by France and the mediatization of a further 41 by German counts and princes reduced the civic corpus to just six, rendering it little more than an adjunct to the Reichstag. The redistribution of votes made Austrian management of the Reichstag more difficult. Francis hesitated to confirm the new order, thereby undermining the assembly’s vitality.
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The Kreise were likewise affected, with Baden and Württemberg insisting on exercising the votes of the imperial cities they had annexed, alienating the remaining, weaker members, who were already concerned at being marginalized.

The real problem concerned the position of the middling princes.
These had gained considerably in both real and formal influence, yet still had no prospect of using the imperial constitution to hold Austria and Prussia to account. They drew the lessons of events since 1796 and concentrated on developing their military potential to trade this, when necessary, for French recognition of their continued autonomy. The reality was not lost on the former counts, who resorted to the conventional practice of combining after August 1803 in two regionally based unions. Some still hoped to make the old order work through improved cooperation in the Reichstag and Kreis Assemblies, while Prince Karl of Isenburg-Birstein tried to militarize the Frankfurt Union as a possible partner for Napoleon. However, status consciousness was too deeply ingrained. The two unions failed to collaborate, and individual counts joined the middling princes in ‘mediatizing’ the imperial knights: in some cases, castles were besieged and the knights dragged away in chains.
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Austrian ministers recognized that the assault on the knights presaged the end of the emperor’s prerogatives and issued a legal injunction backed by the Reichstag in January 1804.
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Fear of France, which was now allied to several of the princes, prevented the injunction being enforced.

The Decisive Blow, 1805

Napoleon meanwhile forced the pace of events, proclaiming himself emperor (1804) and creating a new kingdom of Italy (1805). Austria sought refuge in renewed alliances with Britain and Russia. Unlike in the wars of 1793–7 and 1799–1801, there was no attempt to appeal to the Empire. Dalberg clung to the illusion that neutrality would preserve the Empire, but open support for France from Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg revealed how things were changing. Napoleon initiated hostilities, defeating the Austrians at Ulm in October 1805 and entering Vienna a month later, succeeding where the Ottomans had twice failed. A further Austro-Russian defeat at Austerlitz on 2 December broke all resistance. Austria agreed an armistice with France, the Russians retreated, and Prussia, which had mobilized, now backed down in return for renewed French permission to annex Hanover. Through this, Napoleon turned Prussia into ‘an accomplice’ in his destruction of the Empire.
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New treaties bound Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg closer to France, paving the way for Napoleon to dictate terms to Austria in the
Peace of Pressburg on 26 December 1805. Austria accepted further territorial redistribution benefiting France’s German allies, and recognized Bavaria and Württemberg as sovereign kingdoms, and Baden as a sovereign grand duchy (
Map 12
).
¹³⁵
Pressburg was universally received as a hammer blow, crushing whatever optimism remained. Habsburg ministers recognized that the independence of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg meant that little was left of the Empire. Sweden already declared in January 1806 that it would no longer participate in the Reichstag, which it regarded as dominated by usurpation and egoism.
¹³⁶
Napoleon created the new grand duchy of Cleves-Berg for his brother-in-law Murat, who acted as independent prince. The French emperor then forced Dalberg to accept another distant Bonaparte relation, Cardinal Fesch, as successor designate to the imperial arch-chancellorship in May 1806.
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Austria still struggled to preserve what remained of the Empire, disputing Napoleon’s interpretation of Pressburg to claim that the Swabian, Bavarian and Franconian Kreise still existed. The reluctance to face facts extended to Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. Napoleon pressed the three sovereigns to renounce the Empire entirely. Württemberg did withdraw from the imperial postal network, but otherwise all hesitated to take the final step. Each felt uneasy about the circumstances in which they acquired their new status and wondered what value it had if the old hierarchical order was collapsing. Baden and Württemberg still paid their levy to maintain the Reichskammergericht, which continued to function into July 1806.
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The Final Act, 1806

Napoleon pressed on with plans to bind the militarily potent principalities to France and told his foreign minister at the end of May 1806 that he no longer recognized the Empire’s existence.
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The bitter atmosphere has coloured subsequent accounts of the final act, with virtually every German-speaking author into the late twentieth century criticizing Francis II for not doing more to save the Empire. Certainly, the emperor demeaned his position by trying to bargain territorial concessions from France in return for relinquishing the title.
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Francis himself blamed Prussia for not supporting him, while later commentators anachronistically bemoaned the lack of German nationalism.

Sixteen German princes hastened the end by agreeing the Confederation of the Rhine on French terms on 12 July 1806. In addition to Murat, the signatories comprised Dalberg, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hessen-Darmstadt, and 11 lesser princes, including Karl of Isenburg-Birstein, who used his carefully cultivated personal contacts with Napoleon to ensure he was included.
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Napoleon gave them until 25 July to ratify it, and on 22 July told Francis to abdicate by 10 August or face war. Only Bavaria, Württemberg, Hessen-Darmstadt and Isenburg publicly declared they were leaving the Empire. The Confederation Act included Napoleon’s permission to mediatize the remaining counties, which Württemberg immediately proceeded to do. The princes belatedly apologized to the Reichstag that adverse circumstances since 1795 had left them no choice, trying to excuse their actions by claiming the Empire had already ceased to exist. The next day, Habsburg officials feverishly prepared legal documents to enable Francis not merely to abdicate, but to remove the Empire entirely from Napoleon’s grasp by dissolving it.