Confederation of the Rhine The Confederation of the Rhine ( ; , officially " Confederated States of the Rhine " , but in practice " Confédération du Rhin " ) was a confederation of client state s of the First French Empire . It was formed initially from 16 German states by Napoleon after he defeated Austria and Russia in the Battle of Austerlitz . The Treaty of Pressburg , in effect , led to the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine . It lasted from 1806 to 1813 . The members of the confederation were German princes ( " Fürst en " ) from the Holy Roman Empire . They were later joined by 19 others , all together ruling a total of over 15 million subjects providing a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern front . Prussia and Austria were not members . Napoleon sought to consolidate the modernizing achievements of the revolution , but he wanted the soldiers and supplies these subject states could provide for his wars . The most important accomplishments include the introduction of the Napoleon code , the establishment of religious toleration ( especially for Jews ) , and the abolition of feudal rights . It used a constitution written along French lines . Napoleon required it to supply 63 , 000 troops to his army . The success of the Confederation depended on Napoleon ' s success in battle ; it collapsed when he lost the battle of Leipzig in 1813 . Formation . On 12 July 1806 , on signing the " Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine " ( ) in Paris , 16 states in present - day Germany joined together in a confederation ( the treaty called it the " " , with a precursor in the League of the Rhine ) . Napoleon was its " protector " . On 1 August , the members of the confederation formally seceded from the Holy Roman Empire , and on 6 August , following an ultimatum by Napoleon , Francis II declared the Holy Roman Empire dissolved . Francis ' Habsburg dynasty continued as emperors of Austria . According to the treaty , the confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies , but the individual states ( in particular the larger ones ) wanted unlimited sovereignty . Instead of a monarchical head of state , as the Holy Roman Emperor had been , its highest office was held by Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the former Arch Chancellor , who now bore the title of a Prince - Primate of the confederation . As such , he was President of the College of Kings and presided over the " Diet of the Confederation , " designed to be a parliament - like body though it never actually assembled . The President of the Council of the Princes was the Prince of Nassau - Usingen . The Confederation was above all a military alliance : the members had to maintain substantial armies for mutual defense and supply France with large numbers of military personnel . In return for their cooperation some state rulers were given higher statuses : Baden , Hesse , Cleves , and Berg were made into grand duchies , and Württemberg and Bavaria became kingdoms . States were also made larger by incorporating the many smaller " Kleinstaaten " , or small former imperial member states . As events played out , however , the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs . After Prussia lost to France in 1806 , Napoleon cajoled most of the secondary states of Germany into the Rheinbund . Eventually , an additional 23 German states joined the Confederation . It was at its largest in 1808 , when it included 36 states — four kingdoms , five grand duchies , 13 duchies , seventeen principalities , and the Free Hansa towns of Hamburg , Lübeck , and Bremen . Only Austria , Prussia , Danish Holstein , and Swedish Pomerania stayed outside , not counting the west bank of the Rhine and Principality of Erfurt , which were annexed by the French empire . In 1810 large parts of northwest Germany were quickly annexed to France in order to better monitor the trade embargo with Great Britain , the Continental System . The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813 , with the aftermath of Napoleon ' s failed campaign against the Russian Empire . Many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig , when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition . Member monarchies . The following table shows the members of the confederation , with their date of joining , as well as the number of troops provided , listed in parentheses . Aftermath . The allies opposing Napoleon dissolved the Confederation of the Rhine 4 November 1813 . After its demise , the only attempt at political coordination in Germany until the creation on 8 June 1815 of the German Confederation was a body called the Central Administration Council ( ) ; its President was Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein ( 1757 – 1831 ) . It was dissolved on 20 June 1815 . On 30 May 1814 the Treaty of Paris declared the German states independent . In 1815 , the Congress of Vienna redrew the continent ' s political map . In fact , most surviving members had only minor border changes , and the resulting German Confederation consisted more or less of the same members as the Confederation of the Rhine , with the important addition of the two German great powers of Austria and Prussia .