“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper”

T.S. Eliot wasn’t describing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire when he wrote those words in his poem, “The Hollow Men.” Nonetheless, his lines are an extremely apt way to describe the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, which ended quietly with a stroke of a pen over 200 years ago in August of 1806.

That’s when the last emperor decided it was his duty to abdicate, letting the dominion under his protection dissolve rather than allow Napoleon to usurp the role of Holy Roman Emperor and everything that came with it.

The end of the empire was no surprise. By the summer of 1806, the end of the Holy Roman Empire had become inevitable.

Napoleon’s victory over Russia and Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz in December of 1805, and his formation of the Confederation of the Rhine the following July (after he convinced 16 German princes to renounce their allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire and join him) were fatal blows to the ancient regime.

Like the Roman Empire before it, the Holy Roman Empire lasted about a thousand years. It began in 800 AD, when Charlemagne had himself crowned as Holy Roman Emperor  in Rome by Pope Leo III.

During its nearly 1,000-year history, the Holy Roman Empire encompassed a web of territories in central Europe, including much of what is today Germany and Italy. At its height, it was a formidable medieval institution, an unbeatable force that combined the divine power of the pope with the temporal power of a monarch.

However, by the end of the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire was, as Voltaire cynically remarked, neither holy, nor Roman, nor even an empire. The wars and political convulsions that resulted from the French Revolution weakened the realm, and it became a casualty of Napoleon’s insatiable thirst for conquest.

During the Regency era, some statesmen believed that once Napoleon was defeated the Holy Roman Empire would be restored, perhaps by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. It was a reasonable assumption; after all, presiding over the Congress was Francis I of Austria, who before 1806 was Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. (That’s confusing, I know, but that’s politics for you.)

But that hope didn’t materialize when the Congress of Vienna re-drew the map of Europe in an effort to balance the power of its nations. The Holy Roman Empire did not make a comeback. Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine didn’t survive, either.

What did emerge from the deliberations was a new Germany made up of 39 states, with land from the two great powers of the day, Austria and Prussia, as well as many smaller kingdoms, including Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover.

With that action, the Congress of Vienna sowed the seeds of German nationalism, a movement which grew and became a factor in two world wars a century later.

It’s hard for us to imagine today, after so much time has passed, what it must have been like for Europeans in the early 19th century to see the Holy Roman Empire fall apart.

They were no doubt aware that their ancient empire had lost much of its lands and political clout in the wake of Napoleon’s conquests, which had toppled monarchies across the Continent.

Still, the Holy Roman Empire had existed as a governing body for almost 10 centuries, and at least 30 generations had lived and died in its long shadow. In that summer of 1806 many Europeans must have felt that the world as they knew it was coming to an end.

To put it in perspective, the United States of America has been around a mere 247 years, yet I believe most U.S. citizens would feel acutely bereft if they suddenly lost their national identity.

However, an entity like the Holy Roman Empire doesn’t disappear that easily. Even though the empire became defunct, its influence didn’t end in 1806.

During the 19th century, the history and traditions of the Holy Roman Empire gave the fledgling country of Germany a foundation. And in the 20th century, Adolf Hitler was fascinated by the Holy Roman Empire and kept it in mind as he developed his Third Reich, which eventually led to many of the horrors of World War II.

In particular, the Führer’s cruel and twisted ideas concerning a master Aryan race and the need to “purify” the German populace came out of his warped understanding of the mission of the empire’s fabled Teutonic Knights.

And while the Nazis famously looted and plundered a vast array of Europe’s art treasures during the war, one of Hitler’s top priorities was to capture the magnificent crown jewels that once belonged to the empire.

No doubt he dreamt of using them in the future to give added legitimacy to his coronation as the ruler of a gloriously resurrected Holy Roman Empire.

Fortunately, most of the Imperial Crown Jewels were rescued and are now kept in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna, Austria. I’d like to see these jeweled relics someday; I think they serve as a potent reminder that nothing endures forever, not even a thousand-year-old empire.

In addition, for me the sight of the recovered crown jewels would also reinforce that other fundamental lesson of history — that the past, no matter how dead it may seem, is somehow always with us.

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Sources for this post include:

Hitler’s Holy Relics, A True Story of Nazi Plunder and the Race to Recover the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, Simon & Schuster, Ltd, New York, New York, 2010

Heart of Europe, A History of the Holy Roman Empire, by Peter H. Wilson, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016

The Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce, Wildside Press, Cabin John, Maryland, 2009

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Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons