The Prussian King, influenced by antagonism to Austria and by the hope of obtaining safety and reward for Prussia, stubbornly maintained his attitude of neutrality, while the German Empire was receiving its death-blow at Austerlitz. That "battle of the three Emperors," as it is called, was a paralyzing defeat to the Allies.
Prussia ignominiously received Hanover as her reward, and seventeen German states, including Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, formally separated themselves from the German Empire and declared themselves subject to the French Emperor. This was known as the Rheinbund.
The German Empire was now reduced to three separate bodies: the Rheinbund, a federation of states giving willing allegiance to Napoleon; Prussia, practically in alliance with her destroyer; and Austria, helpless in that destroyer's grasp, while he, sitting in the Imperial Palace at Vienna, dictated terms of peace.
The Empire was broken beyond repair. On the 6th of August its dissolution was formally announced. Francis II. abdicated the Imperial crown and assumed the title of the "Emperor of Austria."
It was not the people of Prussia who bartered their allegiance to the fatherland for peace and for Hanover. It was their King and princes who brought this stain upon them, and their beautiful Queen Louise, mother of the late Emperor William, had pleaded in vain with the King to pursue a loyal and patriotic course.
The punishment came swiftly. The insatiate conqueror had no thought of leaving a great state like Prussia undisturbed. And soon it developed that his plan was also to create a northern bund under his protectorate, which would be composed of the Prussian states on the northern coast.
Forced in her own defense to take up arms, Prussia suffered a terrible defeat at Jena, 1806. The conqueror for whose friendship Frederick William had sacrificed his country was in Berlin. The beautiful Prussian Queen who, he knew, had used her influence against him, was treated with the grossest insolence, while for the cowed people recently in revolt, and now prostrating themselves, he did not restrain his contempt.
The Peace of Tilsit (1807) determined the full measure of Prussia's retribution. Her Polish acquisitions were made into a "Grand Duchy of Warsaw," under a French protectorate. One half of the rest of her territory was converted into a kingdom of Westphalia, over which Napoleon's brother Jerome was king. To the remainder of Prussia was assigned the burden of an immense indemnity, and the maintenance of a French army in her territory.
But the cup of humiliation was not drained until later when, standing with the Continent under his feet, Napoleon compelled the Prussian King to join the Rheinbund with what was left of his kingdom, to furnish France with troops, and thus to become tributary to his designs upon Europe.
Napoleon in the meantime, in an hour's interview with Alexander of Russia, had by the magic of his influence secured that Emperor's friendship. All this excellent man was fighting for was the peace of Europe! And he disclosed to Alexander his plan that they two should be the eternal custodians of that peace; which was to be secured by restraining the arrogance of England; and that was to be done by destroying her commercial prosperity. All of Europe was to be forbidden to trade with that country. There was to be a Continental blockade against a "nation of shopkeepers." Alexander was completely won, and he promised not to molest his new friend in his benevolent task.