Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on 6 August 1806, when the Emperor Francis II abdicated his title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Although the abdication was considered legal, the dissolution of the imperial bonds was not and several states refused to recognise the end of the empire at the time.[1]

Notes

  1. Gagliardo 1980, p. 281.

Sources

  • Forrest, Alan; Wilson, Peter H., eds. (2009). The Bee and the Eagle: Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
  • Gagliardo, John G. (1980). Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763–1806. University of Indiana Press.
  • Whaley, Joachim (2012). Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648–1806. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Wilson, Peter H. (2012). "Bolstering the Prestige of the Habsburgs: The End of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806". The International History Review 28 (4): 709–36.