Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/605

 The Career of Napoleon Bonaparte 461 known as King of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Galicia, and Laodomeria, Duke of Lorraine, Venice, Salzburg, etc., Grand Duke of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, etc. 812. The Confederation of the Rhine. Meanwhile Napoleon had organized a union of the southern German states, called the Confederation of the Rhine, and had assumed its headship as " Protector." This he had done, he assured Europe, " in the dear- est interests of his people and of his neighbors," adding the pious hope that the French ar- mies had crossed the Rhine for 'the last time, and that the peo- ple of Germany would witness no longer, " except in the annals of the past, the horrible pictures of disorder, devastation, and slaughter that war invariably brings with it." In reality, how- ever, Napoleon was enlarging his empire by erecting depend- ent states east of the Rhine. Immediately after the battle of Austerlitz Napoleon proclaimed that the king of Naples, who had allied himself with the English, had ceased to reign, and French generals were ordered to occupy Naples. In March, 1806, he made his brother Joseph king of Naples and Sicily, his brother Louis king of Holland, and his brother-in-law, Murat, duke of Cleves and Berg. These states and those of his German allies constituted what he called "the real French Empire." 813. Prussia forced into War with France. One of the most important of the continental states had taken no part as yet in the opposition to the extension of Napoleon's power. Prussia, the first power (o conclude peace with the new French Republic in 1795, had since that time maintained a strict neutrality. FRANCIS I OF AUSTRIA